Stories worth reading – June 25, 2015
Here are a few curated stories we’re reading and talking about this week:
First, did you catch these stories on the T4A blog?
Statement in response to introduction of the Railroad Reform, Enhancement and Efficiency Act
From the T4A blog
Senators Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) today introduced a multi-year bill to authorize funding to Amtrak and support passenger rail, dubbed the Railroad Reform, Enhancement and Efficiency Act. It would be the successor to the existing rail authorization, the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act.
Statement on the release of the Senate’s long-term transportation reauthorization proposal
From the T4A blog
Senate EPW bill represents progress toward passage of a long-term bill and a good starting point for debate and improvements.
Senate’s new transportation bill is a good start, but more should be done for local communities
From the T4A blog
At long last, there’s finally some progress to report on a new long-term federal transportation bill. Today, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee released their draft six-year transportation bill. While we think it’s a good starting point, there are some promising proposals to improve it dramatically during a planned markup tomorrow.
Other headlines
When City Hall Is Part of Transit-Oriented Development
Next City
“If we’re expecting the private sector to move in, then the public sector has to be the first to maintain its presence in the downtown,” [John Robert Smith, co-chair of Transportation for America,] says. “We talk a lot about PPPs, but the truth is that the public sector always needs to go first.”
How Uber and Lyft Are Trying to Solve America’s Carpooling Problem
Time
Popular tech companies Lyft and Uber are leading a wave of new services that have the potential to revive shared rides. “What fascinates me about these things is: can they move us closer toward a vision of an integrated public transit system?” asks Susan Shaheen, co-director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley. “And can it move us closer to filling empty seats in vehicles?”
D.C.’s new identity? A hub for transportation innovation.
The Washington Post
Washington may be considered to be a government town by many — it is the nation’s capital, after all — but it’s also moonlighting as a laboratory for companies experimenting with new ways to move people around.
The Problem with the Gas Tax in Three Charts
Brookings
A recent U.S. House Ways and Means Committee hearing focused on the long-term sustainability of the nation’s transportation program. Most of the attention went to the federal gasoline tax, its role in supporting the overall program, and the fact that it hasn’t been raised—even to keep pace with inflation—in two decades.
Many Utah cities pushing for election this year to hike sales tax
The Salt Lake Tribune
Scores of cities statewide are passing resolutions asking counties to place on the ballot this year a proposed sales-tax increase for local roads and mass transit. Widespread city support could give county leaders political cover if they choose to take the never-popular step of seeking higher taxes, and do it sooner rather than later.
Did you see The Pope’s wise advice on traffic, parking and public transit
The Washington Post
The way we design communities, he argues — and this is basically the central tenet of urban planning — is vital to the kind of lives people experience within them. And so sprawling, car-dependent places force us to spend our lives unhappily idling in traffic. Expensive and overcrowded places rob residents of the dignity of having a good home. Great public spaces, by contrast, bring us together.